Recommended Reads For Well Rounded Individuals

January 24, 2013

At Imarticus Learning, dear student, we sincerely believe in imarting information that can help you in the real world. In addition to knowledge that can enhance your mind. But here’s something you probably didn’t know about us – at Imarticus Learning we aim to help individuals turn into well rounded human beings.

On a personal and professional level, we often find ourselves turn to literature. Be it for light entertainment at tea time or to think in ways we never knew possible, we find that books are the beacon to sucess at all levels. For this purpose, we bring you a list of books we’ve read and absolutely loved in the hope that you will read them too and aces the wealth of knowledge they hold within them.

The Black Swan

Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Genre: Epistemology, philosophy of science

Not to be confused with the Oscar-winning film, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable is a literary/philosophical book by the epistemologist Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It focuses on the extreme impact of certain kinds of rare and unpredictable events (outliers) and humans’ tendency to find simplistic explanations for these events retrospectively. This theory has since become known as ‘The Black Swan’ theory. The book also covers subjects relating to knowledge, aesthetics and ways of life, and uses elements of fiction in making its points.

Barbarians at the Gate

Author: Bryan Burrough and John Helyar

Genre: Non Fiction

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco is a 1990 book about the leveraged buyout (LBO) of RJR Nabisco. It is written by investigative journalists Bryan Burrough and John Helyar and is based on a series of articles written by the authors for The Wall Street Journal. Centered on F Ross Johnson, the CEO of RJR Nabisco, who planned to buy out the rest of the Nabisco shareholders the book is an excellent read for all those interested in seeing how big companies play the buy-out game.

The Smartest Guys in the Room

Author: Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind

Genre: Non Fiction

The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron is a book by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, details the rise and fall of the Enron empire as well as its cast of intriguing characters in a gripping narrative that is based on a wide range of private documents and exclusive sources. In 2005, it was adapted into a documentary film, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

Freakonomics

Author: Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Genre: Non Fiction

The book is a collection of ‘economic’ articles written by Levitt, an expert who has applyies economic theory to diverse subjects not usually covered by “traditional” economists. He does, however, accept the standard neoclassical microeconomic model of rational utility-maximization. In Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner argue that economics is, at root, the study of incentives.